Constitutional amendment on TOPS scholarship financing is endorsed

House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, and other key members of the Louisiana Legislature made a last-minute appeal to voters Thursday for passage of Constitutional Amendment No. 1, which supporters say will preserve financing for the TOPS scholarship program.

Alex Brandon, The Associated Press archive.

Tucker was joined at a news conference in his Capitol office by Sen. John Alario R-Westwego, who is in the running to be Senate president; Sen. Mike Michot, R-Lafayette, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; Rep. Hunter Greene, R-Baton Rouge, outgoing chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means; and Rep. Jeff Arnold, D-Algiers, who is seeking to succeed Tucker as House speaker,

The proposal would redirect more than $40 million a year in the state's settlement with the nation's tobacco companies to the scholarship program. It also would lock into the Constitution 4 cents of the 36-cent-a-pack cigarette tax and dedicate the revenue to health care, which is estimated to be about $12 million a year.

The $12 million would be matched by federal dollars and used to support the Medicaid program.

Tucker said there has been misinformation that the money to be freed up would be used by the Legislature for other spending needs. That is not the case, he said.

"TOPS benefits the students, higher education, and has slowed the brain drain in our state" by encouraging students to remain in Louisiana for post-secondary education, he said.

"We are not doing this to make money available" for spending on other programs, Tucker said.